英语听书《白鲸记》 第42期

Be it said, that though I had felt such a strongrepugnance to his smoking in the bed the nightbefore, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices growwhen love once comes to bend them. For now I likednothing better than to have Queequeg smoking byme, even in bed, because he seemed to be full ofsuch serene household joy then. I no more feltunduly concerned for the landlord's policy ofinsurance. I was only alive to the condensedconfidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe anda blanket with a real friend. With our shaggy jacketsdrawn about our shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowlythere grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-litlamp.

But this fine young savage—this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They puthim down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toilin the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby hemight happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at bottom—so hetold me—he was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the artswhereby to make his people still happier than they were; and more than that, still better thanthey were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians couldbe both miserable and wicked; infinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived atlast in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket,and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost.Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.

And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, wore their clothes, andtried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time fromhome.

By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having a coronation; since hemight now consider his father dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the lastaccounts. He answered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or ratherChristians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kingsbefore him. But by and by, he said, he would return,—as soon as he felt himself baptized again.For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans.They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.

I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future movements. Heanswered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was myown design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the mostpromising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved toaccompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, thesame boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his,boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously assented; for besides theaffection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could notfail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries ofwhaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen.

His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed hisforehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way andthat, and very soon were sleeping.